Profile: A wholly urban seat, entirely consisting of the northern part of Luton. Luton was historically a manufacturing town, originally for hats (hence the nickname of Luton Town football club, based in the constituency) and more recently for Vauxhall cars and Electrolux. The Vauxhall car plant closed in 2002 and the fast growing London Luton Airport, the hub of EasyJet`s operations, is becoming a far more important part of the local economy - Luton reportedly has the highest proportion of taxi drivers per head of anywhere in the UK. The constituency has a high proportion of ethnic minorities, in the 2011 census almost half the population was non-white and one in five were Muslim.

Politics: A marginal seat between Labour and the Conservatives, but one where the Conservatives seem to be making little progress - the Conservatives did not just fail to take the seat in 2010, they went backwards, with the election producing a small swing to Labour. This wasn`t unusual in Scotland or in no hoper seats for the Conservatives, but happened in very few English marginals.

Current MP

KELVIN HOPKINS (Labour) Born 1941, Leicester. Educated at Queen Elizabet`s Grammar School for Boys and Nottingham University. Former trade union officer. Luton councillor 1972-1976. Contested Luton North 1983. First elected as MP for Luton North in 1997. A member of the Socialist Campaign Group.

But, in Danczuk’s case, he had already behaved in a way which should have deprived him of the whip when the sexual allegations arose, and (similar to Fallon) his responses to the allegations gave more questions than answers.

Campbell has always been a loose cannon, but I don’t know the allegations you’re referring to.

Lewis has been reprimanded for his misogynistic “joke”. What else has he done? Also – isn’t tbere a danger of equivocating serious wrongdoing with trivia? I said the same about the tory list, which contains a lot of vague claims and some which don’t even suggest particularly unacceptable behaviour.

The “fake news” phenomenon is massively relevant here. There will be a swarm of claims to confuse the masses, hide some of the serious wrongdoing, and leave the public with the notion “they’re all the same”. It needs to be challenged.

I agree with that. The Hopkins story suggests he’s nothing more than a silly old fool. The only serious allegation is the groin thing but it’s impossible to prove whether it was intended or indeed whether it happened at all.

Chris Riley – the party leader doesn’t suspend or expel a member of the party though he may well choose to express an opinion on it. A whip would be withdrawn or suspended in consultation with the party leader however. In this case the NEC has suspended Hopkins, and suspension from the party automatically means suspension from taking the Labour whip.

Corbyn appears to have reverted to his (pre-General Election) angry man mood of evading journalists’ questions and being abrupt in a way that just looked downright silly on BBC News and the Daily Politics – when asked why he promoted Kelvin to the Shadow Cabinet after allegations were provided to Labour HQ..

Matthew Parris’ view in his piece – that politicians will continue to engage in risky behaviour from Hampstead Heath, to rentboys and extra-marital affairs shagging their secretaries – is interesting.

It’s difficult to know whether it’s a personality trait, or they just think they can get away with it.

He is also reminded me of the Maggie belief (that there’s something inherently suspicious about men with facial hair, in particular beards). Although she also disliked Lawson and Hezza’s ‘louche’ hair. Crabb has a beard and found himself sacked and Kelvin H’s texts remind me of the texts sent by the weardy beardy of Portsmouth himself.

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